If I\u2019m trying to make the Friday Links columns shorter, crisper, brisker\u2014the links text sort of does so, and the books text does not. I already spoiled the books on Wednesday\u2014here\u2019s a reminder that the theme this week (year) is to See The World As It Is (while also trying to make life a taco party). This week, we\u2019re reading The Book of Delights <\/em>by Ross Gay and Anarcho-Indigenism: Conversations on Land and Freedom<\/em>, edited by Francis Dupuis-D\u00e9ri and Benjamin Pillet.<\/p> The Book of Delights <\/strong><\/em>by Ross Gay: <\/strong>it\u2019d be both accurate and hacky to say this book delighted me, but I suspect \u201caccurate\u201d isn\u2019t something Ross was super going for here, and \u201chacky\u201d is something he\u2019s incapable of. There I go, imitating his clause-heavy sentence structure, without, it must be noted, doing it on purpose, although, once this sentence reaches its seventh and eighth commas, here<\/em>, you\u2019ll probably guess I\u2019m leaning into it. Two things prevented me from enjoying this book as much as Be Holding<\/em> (a book I\u2019ll never shut up about loving): 1) my general anti-establishment grumpiness (\u201cof course a \u2018book of delights\u2019 was a National Book Award Finalist in the midst of *gestures wildly*,\u201d I grumble) and 2) another personal problem, which often rears its head when I read collections of flash fiction\u2014so many great essayettes<\/em> one after another can start to feel like we tried to make dinner out of only the richest tapas and dessert of the most decadent chocolate. Why this book succeeds<\/em>, however, is because just like the ending of Get Out<\/em>, the delights are hard-earned. <\/p> Ross is clear-eyed about the world we live in, and as he says near the end, a delight<\/em> does not directly corrolate with a good. <\/em>Despite the blurbs, this book is emphatically not Chicken Soup For The Soul With An MFA<\/em>. This is a book about being a Black man in the United States, one who thinks deeply and writes and gardens and travels and is a father figure to his partner\u2019s daughter and asks for vegetarian substitutions at salad bars. If you know anything about being a Black man in the United States\u2014maybe you are one, maybe you\u2019ve seen Get Out<\/em>\u2014you know all those things are not always made easy for you. In fact, they\u2019re often made harder, for no good reason. In other words, like Jos\u00e9 Olivarez said about Anilucia Sotelo\u2019s poem \u201cFamily Portrait With Enchiladas and A Movie\u201d in his The Line Break <\/em>podcast appearance (Apple<\/a>\/Spotty<\/a>\/Soundcloud<\/a>), Ross treats his subject matter with rigor. Delights are often surprising, unexpected, out of the ordinary. But that doesn\u2019t mean a delight is \u201coooh I saw a butterfly today and then the ice cream cart was across the street and I had $5.\u201d These are meditations, ones that will have you agreeing with Elizabeth Alexander, who blurbs: \u201cRoss Gay is a truly free Black man. His liberated words open our minds and hearts to speak.\u201d I kept that blurb with me as I was reading, a reminder to tamp down my cynicism and dour side, a reminder to let Ross\u2014who is still influencing my sentence structure\u2014to open my heart and mind. <\/p> Anarcho-Indigenism: Conversations on Land and Freedom<\/strong><\/em>, edited by Francis Dupuis-D\u00e9ri and Benjamin Pillet: <\/strong>some throat-clearing, because I suspect \u201canarchism,\u201d as it was to me until pretty recently, will be a loaded term for many of y\u2019all. I am, as regular readers know, not an anarchist. I am a socialist. That said, I think there\u2019s a lot to be learned from reading different theories on the left. There\u2019s a lot to be learned from Indigenous people and society\u2014not just in North America, either. So I picked up this book hoping to gain some perspectives I hadn\u2019t thought about or really seen presented. Anarchism, contrary to popular misconception, is not<\/em> about lawless chaos. That, it seems to me, is more in line with right-wing libertarianism, \u201csovereign citizens\u201d and the like. J. K\u0113haulani Kauanui (this book is a series of interviews, J.\u2019s is great) alleges that \u201cAmerican individualist libertarian tradition draws on a white nativist cadre of thinkers who appropriated indignity for themselves\u2014whether we are talking about the \u2018Founding Fathers\u2019 or the transcendentalists.\u201d Anarchism is more concerned with how we take care of one another, how we build a just society while subjected to an unjust state. <\/p> A thing I believe about contemporary USian society, for example, is that our relationship with nature is fundamentally broken. That feels like a statement that needs no more evidence than the existence of leaf blowers and LLMs. Now, that doesn\u2019t mean I (or anarcho-indigenists, or indigenists, or anarchists) are necessarily advocating for total rejection of modernity and a return to nomadic living. But the way we are going right now is unsustainable. As in, we have moved past the \u201csustainable\u201d part and are firmly staring down the barrel of \u201cun.\u201d So what can we do? Plenty of things. J. K\u0113haulani says a great starting point is \u201c\u2026learning more about the specific area(s) where [Indigenous movements] live and work\u2014and to understand the history of the indigenous peoples whose territory or homeland they are on.\u201d Learning more is something I\u2019m always trying to do\u2014in 2025, I\u2019m going to see how I can actively get involved. <\/p> LINKS!<\/strong><\/p> Something to listen to while you browse? I really enjoy Adam Neely\u2019s YouTube stuff, I think he\u2019s a super smart thinker about music. Plus, he\u2019s a jazz guy who\u2019s around my age, lol. His band, Sungazer, ranges (to me) from \u201coh sick\u201d to \u201cinteresting, but not really for me.\u201d Adam himself pushes the bass in exciting directions, and the band does some rad rhythmic stuff (what a drummer!), and I enjoyed \u201cCool 7:\u201d<\/p>![](\"https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/7062408b-f7c3-4d3e-b40c-28900585d852_4032x3024.heic\"\/)
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